I've been playing around with Terrablood's warrior creation simulator and I've noticed that no matter what you do, parry-strikes never do well. Why is that? Is it because of some big game secret where the creators hate the style? Is it something in the number crunching? Why doesn't that style do well on the Isle?

Thoughts?

One Armed BanditArchMaster Poster

Joined: Apr 15, 2004
Posts: 2773

Posted:
Thu Jun 06, 2013 6:15 am

I think that originally the style's balance and endurance conservation where seen to offset the low starting skill base.

Now the game has evolved into one of extremes, where 21s, 3s, and distorted learning curves rule the day.

We were discussing the PS style in Chatzy the other day, and the consensus is that if you want one to do well, you have a small window in Rookies and Apprentices (before the crappy learning distribution takes over) and then again in Freshmen and ADM (after the warrior has finally learned those Att and Def skills).

AssurnasirbanipalArchMaster Poster

Joined: Oct 21, 2002
Posts: 1664
Location: San Jose, CA

Posted:
Thu Jun 06, 2013 6:41 am

Low skills and maybe the worst learning distribution in the game make it a tougher style to play. And like strikers, you most likely won't find their favorite weapon.

This becomes compounded by the fact that very few Pikers are rolled with 'A' setups.

I've found the easiest way to succeed with them is to design them like either a scum or offensive and hope they learn appropriately. Though my only TV was with a true hybrid Piker. It is possible to succeed with them, but definitely not a 1st tier style.

DekeAdvanced Master Poster

Joined: Aug 15, 2006
Posts: 390
Location: Atlanta Georgia Area

Posted:
Thu Jun 06, 2013 8:03 am

In the dark distant past, when most of the game secrets were undiscovered and there was more inaccurate information (Red Book of Lies, Ed's ramblings, etc.) it might take a novice manager a year to discover which weapons can be used by which warriors.

The other expection is that a Parry Striker can use almost any weapon and almost any strategy, which means they were hard to screw up. The tradeoff was raw skills. But in the 1980s every warrior had a bad skill base.

Most of the early champions were Parry Strike warriors, before Lungers had trained CON and WILL to increase thier enduance, before the Riposters had trained STR for increased damage, etc.

I have Baron Cockroach in Primus, and he is the most maleable of my warriors. He can use any strategy and any weapon set. I can tank him up with APA-F Battlexe going 3-4. I can send him out lunger style with ALE-S Longsword going 9-10. One of my Face to Face tactics was to force the whole room to guess which version of Baron Cockroach I was running that round.

BARON COCKROACH (20-703) of DOC LEGRAND'S LAB (63) [153-138-2,51,453FE], will fight Primus. He is a parry-strike with ST=25(16) CN=25(14) SZ=10 WT=25(8) WL=25(10) SP=25(16) DF=25(12). He is right handed, has an intellect of unearthly proportions, is a marvel of fighting coordination, has awesome endurance, can withstand almost any amount of punishment, can carry almost limitless weight, is incredibly quick and elusive, does awesome damage, has an Archmaster in initiative, has an Archmaster in riposte, has an Archmaster in attack, has an Archmaster in parry, has an Archmaster in defense, has a Grandmaster in decisiveness, favors the battle axe, favors a low offensive effort, favors a low activity level, uses the decisive tactic well, and preferentially learns parry.

The game was always broken at the top end. Now, 20 years later managers have great knowledge of how the game is broken at the top end and are exploting that knowledge.

All the benifits of a Parry Strike have been rendered insignificant, and the draw backs of low skill bases are crippling obvious.

_________________Deke is a relic of the past known as Doc LeGrand
Arena 21, 81, 102 as Doc LeGrand's Lab

I've only graduated 1 PS (11(1)-15(1)-14-11(2)-17(2)-7-15 Good/Good;+4 INI, +2 PAR; SM fave weapon , MO/LO, Responsiveness tactic, learns DEF; 23-20-0 record at graduation) and he was a weak RU regardless of style choice so the example is marginal at best. I have always struggled with the P-S/R/L styles so I rarely make a good RU into one anymore; too many good LUs, STs, SLs, etc wasted on them early on.

This may be why a number of managers stayed away from the style early on, and have continued on this way since. Too many weapons for possible favorite, too many tactics available, too many rhythms possible. With it's low ATT skill base, on top of all that, means your less likely to find a way to override that. At least with a LU, ST, or TP (for example) you may be deficient somewhere but you can find other ways to overcome issues.

With the ST you can simply just run it hot, with the DEC tactic, and beat warriors to the attack and pull off some extra wins, over and above it's expected performance based on skill levels; despite it's low ATT base and wide range of possible favorite weapons. It tends to learn DEC, INI, and a decent amount of ATT to continue this formula later in basic.

With the TP there's a reasonably small amount of weapons and rhythms so even if your not right on the rhythm you are almost always close; many theorize if you have, for example, a VL favorite for OE that it fights best at VL, a little worse at LO, even worse at MO, yet worse at HI, and worst of all at VH. You'll almost always armor it up and train CN as high as possible and you can steal some wins that way.

The LU has a highest skill base, along with WS, a small number of weapons to choose from, and a fairly narrow band where it's favorite rhythm falls. It will tend to learn a lot of INI and DEF which means whether you run it offensive or defensive the learning distribution helps it out. If it learns a lot of ATT and DEC it probably has plenty of DEF as well; if it learns a lot of DEF and RIP then it can run defensive and still attack enough to beat low CN offensives with one or two shots as it dodges around.

As to the PS it rarely learns a lot in one area but learns 4 or 5 skill areas about equally. Those learns mean it is well rounded in most cases but excels at next to nothing. If you make it more like a ST than it probably doesn't have enough CN to tank/brick should it learn a lot of PAR and DEF. If it also has a HI/MO favorite rhythm than it will perform marginally running defensively as well. If it has a lot of CN and can carry a lot of weight but learns more DEC, INI, and ATT than it probably had lower ATT or DEC, than an offensively designed PS, then it needs to take advantage of it's learns. With a LO/LO rhythm problems compound when running hot.

Add to that a lot of weapons, tactics, and rhythms that your unlikely to hit upon it's favorites to help maximize wins. Basically for an effective PS you need some luck. You need it's faves to match it's design and on top of that you need it's learns to match as well.

As an example I'll list the learns of my graduated PS and my current 21 WT PS.

Graduate (Small shield fave, MO/LO, responsiveness, DEF learn, built like a brick): 7/2/11/12/8/10. It's fave learn is 4th as far as what it actually learned with INI being a very close 5th!

7-13-13-21-10-9-11 PS POOR/GOOD apparently mode ... so far : 7/1/1/16/6/8. Not at all horrible but some of those INI or DEC skills into DEF or ATT would certainly be more useful. This is the type of RU that I'd normally make a ST but I figured with the 21 WT and 13 CN I could give this guy a run as a PS instead. I hoped it would learn INI, ATT, and DEC since it's more an offensive design with some CN in case it got jumped. It took until it's most recent fight, number 16, to learn that ATT skill. Early on it was mostly PAR and INI; about 5 of the 8 DEC came in it's first 7-8 fights. So early on I couldn't decide what in the world to do with a lot of PAR, INI, and DEC so I just went with my usual ST strategy and have been fortunate. It has thrown a LOT of crits with the SC, despite having 7 and now 8 ATT skills, so I think I got lucky with maybe hitting it's fave weapon; it sits at 12-4-0!

_________________A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

Thomas Jefferson

LongshotGrandmaster Poster

Joined: Sep 30, 2012
Posts: 790
Location: Port Moody, BC

Posted:
Sat Jun 08, 2013 4:45 pm

Thanks for the feed back. Some of the stuff you guys said is the same thing I thought too. Favorite weapon for example. My parry strike's favorite was a battle axe. There is no way in hell I would have thought to use that.

Deke, I remember the old days too. Back then, people were running aimed blows like a defensive style and an eight speed lunger was laughed at. At least it was that way with the people I knew. Some of the stuff I won with makes me cringe these day. I couldn't tell you how I won with those guys.

The ConsortiumArchMaster Poster

Joined: Nov 23, 2002
Posts: 9428
Location: on the golf course, in the garden, reading, traveling, and now Consulting

Posted:
Sun Jun 09, 2013 12:20 am

Longshot wrote:

Thanks for the feed back. Some of the stuff you guys said is the same thing I thought too. Favorite weapon for example. My parry strike's favorite was a battle axe. There is no way in hell I would have thought to use that.

Deke, I remember the old days too. Back then, people were running aimed blows like a defensive style and an eight speed lunger was laughed at. At least it was that way with the people I knew. Some of the stuff I won with makes me cringe these day. I couldn't tell you how I won with those guys.

Oh, yeah - those O L D days. We remember them well ........haughty, less-friendly managers, articles in PBM Magazines, ,large arenas, 50+ people tournaments (a little later), plungers were the perfect warrior, crisp mail delivery, no electronic posted "cheat" arenas, we were all younger (but The Consortium was even old then) .....